Canadian City Delivers On 1000 Acts of Kindness Challenge

Even the police stepped up to the challenge issued by London, Ontario to perform 1000 acts of kindness as a community this October. With just 2 days left, the third annual kindness challenge, issued by the London Urban Services Organization, has likely broken all city records for good deeds.

Since the fall of 2009, Londoners have been asked to do something nice for someone during the month, and post the results to a tallied blog. Reading about the gestures of generosity posted by citizens in their own words, will elicit warm, fuzzy feelings in even the stodgiest curmudgeon.

For its part, the London Police Service, with the financial backing of Scotiabank, gave away 540 small teddy bears — dubbed Hero Bears and dressed in patrol or tactical uniforms —to unsuspecting community members to bring smiles to people’s faces. Last year the police participated in the kindness challenge by collecting food bank donations and buying coffee for citizens.

The Regional HIV/AIDS Connection also joined the fun, surprising 500 lucky passers-by with free coffee and treats recently.

The first annual challenge, along with last year’s, logged a kindness explosion of 106,760 separate acts, with area schools contributing a huge part of that number.

84 schools in the Thames Valley School District signed on to encourage courtesy this year, with the goal of tracking 100,000 kindnesses in October.

At Evelyn Harris Public School, students and staff members are posing as ‘smile trackers’ to document acts of kindness shown in the schoolyard, in the hallways and in classrooms.

As of Friday Oct. 21, Northridge Public School had completed 1064 acts of kindness. “My colleagues have been amazing at motivating the students, including using announcements each morning.” said a teacher at the school, Mrs. Neelam Sainani.

The Challenge, started by LUSO’s Meredith Fraser, sprang as a response to a series of hate-motivated incidents that targeted community members in London during the fall of 2009.